Me when bad things happen to other characters in GoT: Oh god that’s sad but I guess that’s what I should expect from this book
Me when bad things happen to Sansa or Arya: Oh god oh god oh god I will never recover
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@otherworldlyki
Oh, that was a pleasant reaction from the man. It would almost make the demonic saiyan smile in return. Yes, he already likes this man. How long has it been since he had a conversation with someone who was chill?
“I knew it, you don't even hide your D cup breasts. Well then, sir slut, your tits hands them over.”
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Y'know, fire nation history is a really blatant mirroring of Japan's history, huh? I missed it as a kid because I was completely unaware of Japanese imperialism, but the transition from the warring states era to Japan as an opressive military and imperial power is very similar to the fire nation's. It's pretty historical and true-to-life worldbuilding... A lot of "post-canon rewrite" stuff has Zuko trying to transition the fire nation to operate under more western and liberal frameworks, and it has me thinking about the actual complexity of that situation. It's fiction, and peaceful transitions of power and government are a fantasy- wouldn't it be better if things just worked out? And I get that, wanting everything to be smooth and soft, but some of that content is pretty reductive and worldview limiting. What do you think about LOKs decision to keep the fire nation an autocratic monarchy? Gradual transition away from autocracy is... difficult, to say the least, especially if the autocrat is more about supporting the needs of the people than the members of the noble class around them(Alexander II comes to mind). I haven't watched all of LOK, but some of their representation of socio-political conflict seemed lacking to me. How do you think they handled some of this, overall? Feel free to ignore this huge and non-specific question, but I'd love to hear some of your thoughts!
okay well..... i've been meaning to get to this ask but there is like. SO much??? here???? so i think i'm just gonna go in bullet points and if any one point isn't as thorough as it could be well that is simply because i only have so much time before my cat comes over and sits on my keyboard
theres a reason why this show was canceled in japan. like, i think a lot of people are quick to claim that that the FN = japan exclusively and miss the a) other cultural references imbued in the fire nation worldbuilding b) the broader critique of imperialism as a whole that the FN represents – for example, in the US, where this show was made, during the bush administration. but yes the parallels to japan are there and they are not subtle.
i mean, we want things to work out for zuko and for the fire nation because atla is a character-driven story with the primary teleological aim of ending the war, so once the war ends, we want our characters to have reached Ultimate Personal Fulfillment, seeing as the story is now over. but realistically speaking, that's not how people or governments work. of course the gaang aren't done growing as people or facing personal and political struggles. they're all just teenagers with a lot of (largely unprocessed) trauma. in fairness, the comics did try to address this, but the comics are hot garbage, so it doesn't count.
zuko succeeding ozai as firelord is actually the least radical choice the insurrection could've made (probably because it was made by the former crown prince of the fire nation lmao). a son usurping his father for the throne isn't exactly uncommon (hell, ozai did that to azulon not 7 years prior), even if his motivations (to decolonize his nation from the inside with the help of his indigenous genocide-victim allies) are not. plus, technically, azula was the one about to take the throne when zuko challenged her for it, and seeing as he technically won the agni kai, his claim is perfectly legitimate. like, i can see a lot of ozai sympathizers deeming zuko unfit to rule on the basis of his radical agenda/"softness," but i can also see a lot of victims of the FN deeming zuko's ascension not radical enough, since he was basically already crown prince anyway. although i guess the best way to mitigate dissent from both sides is to be working with a fully-realized avatar who can take your bending away if you step out of line. that's something our world doesn't have, and i can imagine it would help matters considerably.
out of all of the batshit insane (and yes, extremely western liberal) politics introduced in lok, the state of the fire nation is the one we actually know the least about. we do know that zuko's daughter is the firelord, but we don't know how far her role extends (we know that she can send troops to war, but we also know that she's a pacifist) or how much power she really has. so "monarchy," yes, but "autocracy"?? debatable.
and as for how i feel about "how lok handled the sociopolitical conflict overall," i think it's SHIT, obviously. because it simply doesn't make sense. i obviously do have a lot of thoughts on this which i could expand on more if u want but for now i'm gonna use a thing i said to my friend the other day to summarize what i see as the crux of the issue: "the insane worldbuilding is part of the shows dna how am I supposed to be like “this is how it could be improved” when it would in fact need to be completely discarded and redone entirely. which, ironically, metatextually, is also sort of the problem w lok’s politics itself."
okay obviously there's a lot more that could be said on all of these points but it already took me so long just to write this much bc my cat is an incredibly demanding little boy. lemme know if there's anything you want me to clarify/expand/follow up on tho
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